Family Skeleton by Carmel Bird, photograph via UWA Publishing.
You can’t dig a grave without disturbing the smooth surface of the ground. Hot off the press, Family Skeleton is Carmel Bird’s ninth novel (Altogether she has written roughly thirty books).
Family Skeleton examines the history of a family that has for generations been engaged in the dark business of death – running a funeral home. The book opens in the skeleton’s voice and we meet Margaret, the family matriarch, widow of Edmund Rice O’Day of the exclusive O’Day Funerals, inside her posh, elegant Toorak mansion, secretly spying on her family in the garden. Everyone, including Margaret herself, is oblivious to the secrets that threaten to be uncovered by a visiting American relative, Doria Fogelsong, a historian and researcher who seeks to examine the O’Day’s family history.
We learn of various family scandals – including an explosive family secret that rocks Margaret’s world, revealing that the beloved idol of her father had clay feet and Doria must never know. An accident happens to Doria – is Margaret guilty? Is Doria after Margaret’s money? Is Doria blackmailing Margaret? How far will Margaret go in order to bury the truth?
The book jumps fluidly and clearly between the Skeleton as narrator and Margaret’s hidden, unpublished journal.The Skeleton has a rather sarcastic, ironic, jovial tone at times and Margaret’s quite revealing journal is also catty in her comments about her family in parts. There are comments about the two parts of the O’Day family and how they live in different suburbs (Toorak and Eltham and the great divide between them). We also learn of the secret history of Edmund and Margaret’s sister Cecilia – Sissy.There is also the quite sad story behind a historic quilt that Doria brings and presents to a museum in Tasmania.
Another theme throughout is the fragile delicate beauty of butterflies and their symbolism in Margaret’s world. Also interweaving throughout is the importance of the name of Ophelia and how this relates to the family and the hidden secrets. The family’s Catholicism is also important.
Perhaps somewhat quirky and subversive, Family Skeleton has a very contemporary feel and is set in a not-too-distant future where funeral plots are able to be customised in a way that somehow feels awkwardly conventional. If you enjoy books by Margaret Atwood, Kate Grenville and Thomas Keneally you will probably like this. Bird is a writer fully in control of her writers and character’s voice – Family Skeleton jumps, fluid dips sprinkled with sharp comments and ironies. The rather breathless ending is perhaps a trifle rushed but that is personal taste. Family Skeleton is a densely detailed depiction of both the process of forging personal and family identity and the art of deconstructing these .
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Family Skeleton by Carmel Bird
UWA Publishing
AUTHOR: Carmel Bird
PUBLICATION DATE: September 2016
FORMAT: Paperback
EXTENT: 250 pages
SIZE: 234 (h) x 153 (w) mm
ISBN: 9781742588902
RIGHTS: World rights
CATEGORY: Carmel Bird, Fiction​
